


questions of mortality

by deathsweetqueen



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Hindu Tony Stark, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Human Experimentation, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Indian Tony Stark, M/M, Parent Bucky Barnes, Parent Tony Stark, Protective Tony Stark, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:40:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26172085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathsweetqueen/pseuds/deathsweetqueen
Summary: Tony hates HYDRA bases.He especially hates HYDRA bases that he has to investigate on his own, because Bruce doesn’t like to bring out the Hulk until the world is going to shit, and Clint is off on some mission that is actually run by SHIELD but no one wants to acknowledge it, and Thor is back on Asgard, and Steve and Natasha are doing something that they don’t want to tell anyone about.So, when the intel from Maria comes in, he’s the only one around to deal with it.In the base, he finds a little girl, no older than three, and when she looks up at him, her eyes are wide, and she looks like she wants to run.In the same base, he finds the results of a DNA test, and it's very clear, looking at just the first page, that this little girl is the biological daughter of Anthony Edward Stark and James Buchanan Barnes.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Comments: 92
Kudos: 524





	1. i.

Tony hates HYDRA bases.

He especially hates HYDRA bases that he has to investigate on his own, because Bruce doesn’t like to bring out the Hulk until the world is going to shit, and Clint is off on some mission that is actually run by SHIELD but no one wants to acknowledge it, and Thor is back on Asgard, and Steve and Natasha are doing something that they don’t want to tell anyone about.

So, when the intel from Maria comes in, he’s the only one around to deal with it.

That’s why he’s going around what seems to be an empty HYDRA base, alone, while JARVIS surveys the entire place for any Nazi stragglers that he can punch in the face, which should hopefully be a good time, to say the least.

“Sir, there are no enemy combatants in view. I have managed to access the surveillance cameras in the base, and there are no HYDRA personnel remaining. However, I suggest that you make your way into last room on the right of the corridor you are currently in.”

“Why?” Tony asks, warily.

“I would explain what I can see through the surveillance cameras, but I do not think you would believe me until you could see it for yourself.”

“That is unfair, J; you know I trust you more than I trust anyone else,” Tony tells him.

“I know, sir, and I am heartened by the show of trust that you place in me, but that is how much I am struggling with what is in this room. I suggest you make haste.”

Tony frowns and pads down the hallway in the direction that JARVIS had instructed him to go.

When he pushes open the door, the metal shrieking against the floor, he understands exactly why JARVIS wanted him to make haste.

There’s a little girl curled up against the wall, in a hospital gown, her hair long and dark and hanging around her face in a curly-wavy mess, almost to the middle of her back, and when she looks up at the sound, her eyes are wide and a brown-black, and she looks like she wants to run. She clambers up right, her hands scrabbling against the wall, and she’s scared, _terrified_.

Tony’s helm pulls away from his face, hoping that the sight of a flesh and blood body under all of this armour will prove trustworthy.

“Hi,” he says, keeping his voice soft.

The girl just stares back at him.

She’s no older than three, and suddenly, the rage chokes him, swallows him like some living, breathing beast with a jaw full of sharp teeth, and he wants to kill them, wants to kill the bastards who have made this little girl so afraid, so young.

“Hi,” he clears his throat. “My name’s Tony. What’s yours?”

It seems like a stupid question, because if HYDRA puts a three-year-old girl in a fucking hospital gown and makes her look shit-scared, they probably didn’t give her a name.

The girl remains silent. She just folds her hands in front of her stomach and stares at him with her big, dark eyes.

“Okay, okay,” he says, taking a deep breath. “Uh, I’m gonna close the door. It’s not because I’m trying to keep you in… actually, it is, but it’s not because I want to use you or anything, but because I want to talk to you, and I, uh, I just want to check this room out, see what I can find out. I promise not to touch you, okay. If you want to stay in that corridor, by all means, go right ahead, but I can’t… I can’t have you leaving just yet, kid, I’m sorry.”

The girl sinks back onto the floor and wraps her arms around her knees.

Tony shuts the door behind him, and the girl flinches, and Tony feels like a major dick. He makes his way into the room, which is set up like a bedroom and laboratory at the same time. There’s a cot in the corner of the room, which is presumably where the little girl sleeps. There’s a dentist chair with straps to hold a patient down that makes Tony sick to his stomach. There’s a metal table, and there are empty beakers and test tubes scattered across the surface, and there are pieces everywhere, as if the person who ran out of here was in such a rush that they didn’t get a chance to clean up first.

Tony starts gathering up the papers first, eyeing the congealing equipment with a scrunched-up face.

The first page, or rather, what’s written on it, is like a mean, quick punch to the gut.

“Oh,” he says, and his legs are weak, like he needs to sit down.

But he looks at the girl instead, looks at her in a new light, notes her dark skin and her dark hair and her angular face, sharp features, and lean, slight body.

_Oh._

“Okay, okay, new plan,” Tony says, his voice sliding high, folding the pages and putting them into his suit. “JARVIS?”

“Yes, sir.”

The new voice frightens the little girl even more, and a hurt little noise escapes her, a noise that catches Tony, again, like a mean, quick punch to the gut.

“Okay, scratch that; you’re scaring her. Okay, I can do this on my own. I’m a capable, functioning adult. Okay.”

He approaches her, carefully, and she just stares right back at him.

“Hi,” he says, softly. “I’m not going to hurt you, I promise.”

The girl shifts. “They… I’ve seen your photo.”

Her voice is soft, perfectly articulated, as if she isn’t a toddler, as if she’s a lot older than she looks.

“Have you?”

The girl nods.

“My name’s Tony, Tony Stark. I’d… I’d like to take you out of here, honey. I’d like to get you away from this place.”

“Why?” she asks, suspiciously.

“Because I don’t think this is a place for you. Because I’d like to take you somewhere warm, where you can clean up, and we can, uh, get you some new clothes, not a hospital gown, but, uh, some nice ones, and food? You ever have fries? No? No? Okay, we can get you some fries.”

He stretches out his hand, and she ponders it for a long, quiet moment, before she slips her smaller one into his palm.

Warmth floods through him, and he offers a smile.

She smiles back, shyly.

* * *

She screams in his ear when they fly back, the armour sticking to low pressure points so that it doesn’t hurt her and it doesn’t make it hard for her to breathe, but the screams are a loud clamour of joy, her arms and legs tight around him.

When they land on the tarmac of the tower, and the armour is swallowed inside, she stares down at the people on the street, looking as small as ants, like awe.

“Welcome to my humble abode,” he says, dramatically stretching out his hands.

She giggles and holds onto his hand, as he leads her into the tower.

“JARVIS?”

“Yes, sir.”

The girl jumps and begins to look around, fearfully, at the advent of the new voice.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he soothes. “It’s just JARVIS. Do you, do you know what artificial intelligence is?”

The girl shakes her head.

“Okay, so, uh, JARVIS is like my… he’s like my helper?” he says, awkwardly, even if the word doesn’t begin to explain who JARVIS is to him. “He’s a computer, and he has… sensors and speakers everywhere, so it sounds like he’s talking from the ceiling, but he’s actually all around the place.”

“Does he watch you?”

“He watches all of us,” Tony says, gently, “but to protect us. He would never do anything to hurt us. He keeps an eye on the place, on me, on those I care about, because he cares about us.”

The girl plays with the hem of her gown. “Us?”

Tony remembers the pieces of paper that he’d stuffed into his suit and says, “Yeah, us.” He hesitates. “While you were there, honey, did they… did they give you a name or-or-”

The girl is shaking her head.

“Okay, uh, can _I_ give you a name?” he offers.

The girl shrugs.

Tony swallows hard. “Okay, uh, so, how about Maushmi? Maushmi was my mother’s name. It means, uh, _monsoon wind_ , and it… well, it sort of adequately explains how you came into my life. How does that sound?”

“Maushmi,” the girl says, sounding out the syllables.

Finally, she nods.

“Okay, Maushmi. Maushmi, it is. Oh, hey, I could call you Mouse _,_ ” Tony drags his hand over his face. “How about some food?”

* * *

Once Maushmi is seated at the kitchen counter in his penthouse, eating string cheese with a smile on her face, like there’s nothing that gives her more joy, he asks JARVIS to keep an eye on her, while he steps out of the kitchen to make a phone call.

“Tony? Tony, what’s wrong?” Steve asks, his voice a rasp on the other end.

“You need to come home now.”

“Now’s not really a good time, Tony,” Steve says, an edge to his voice.

“Yeah, yeah, I know exactly what you’re doing there, and who you’re with, and you need to come back to the Tower right the fuck now,” Tony retorts, his voice like ice.

“I don’t… I don’t know what you mean-”

“Is he there with you? Is Barnes?”

“Tony, I don’t-”

“Save it,” Tony says, coldly, cutting across him. “I don’t care. Bring him too. He needs to come back too. This concerns him just as much.”

“Tony, what’s going on?”

“I can’t talk about this over the phone, Steve. All of you, come home, _now_.”

* * *

He’s holding onto Maushmi’s hand, when the Quinjet drops onto the roof of the Tower. He waits and finds it terribly difficult to stay still, especially when the jet opens out and Steve walks out, in his Captain America uniform, followed by Natasha and Sam Wilson, and finally, James Barnes brings up the rear, his arms wrapped around himself, his eyes fixed on the ground as he moves, as if he’s scared of being hit.

Tony’s chest hurts.

“Tony,” Steve says, his eyes sliding down to the little girl curled up against Tony’s leg. “What’s… what’s going on?”

Tony runs his fingers like a seam over the pieces of paper that he’d taken from the HYDRA base.

“This is Maushmi,” Tony says, sternly. “Hill gave me coordinates for a HYDRA base and inside the base, I found Maushmi.”

“She had the name Maushmi?” Natasha asks, sceptically.

“Of course she didn’t, but she likes the name, don’t you, sweetheart?”

Maushmi nods, fervently, a lot braver than she was when he’d first met her in the base.

“Tony calls me Mouse,” she says, shyly.

Steve sucks with kids, so he just stares at her, gaping at her, as if he doesn’t quite understand who she is or where she came from.

“She looks, uh, she looks just like…” Steve trails off.

 _Yeah, she looks just like me, but I don’t know if you’re just saying that because she’s brown and you think all brown people look the same_ , Tony almost says, but he’s been very careful about not saying out loud what he is to Maushmi, not in front of her, just in case it bothers her.

“Mouse, sweetheart,” Tony says, softly, reaching for her.

She climbs into his arms, with easy, unthinking familiarity, which makes his heart break clean in two, just to add more space for this little girl in his arms. He smooths back her hair, and he’d tried very hard this morning to braid it the way that he remembers his mother doing for herself, and it doesn’t look half-bad now that he’s looking at it.

He moves past Steve and Sam and Natasha, despite their aborted attempts to stop him, and he lands in front of Barnes, still holding onto this tiny three-year-old in his arms like she’s the only thing grounding him to the earth.

“Hi,” he says, his voice firm but not unkind.

Barnes looks up, and he looks like hell, half-moon bruises under his eyes like he’d been punched twice over, his skin clinging to the bones and tendons underneath like he hadn’t eaten properly in months, his skin sallow and sickly.

Barnes doesn’t answer.

“My name’s Tony Stark,” he says for effect.

“I know,” Barnes rasps like he’s a chain smoker.

“This is Maushmi.”

Barnes looks at her, and the look, the dull, dead calm, in his eyes doesn’t change.

Maybe his face softens a little, becomes kinder because there’s a child and he doesn’t want to scare her.

“I found her in a HYDRA base.”

Barnes flinches. “I don’t… I don’t do that sort of thing anymore,” he says, in a small, sullen voice.

“I know; that’s not why I said it,” Tony tells him and hands him the sheets of paper.

Barnes startles, but nonetheless takes the sheets of paper from him, the material crinkling, as he opens them out. And then, his eyes widen, and his face grows even sallower, if it were possible, and he looks from the paper to the little girl in his arms and then, to Tony.

“Oh,” he says, heavily.

“What? What’s going on?” Steve asks, an edge to his voice, like he doesn’t like to be on the outside, where some secret is passing between Barnes and Tony that he doesn’t know about.

Barnes looks unsure.

“It’s up to you,” Tony decides.

Barnes’ throat flexes and hands Steve the papers. Steve looks down at them, and all he really needs is a look at the first page to know what this secret is.

“Fuck,” Steve says, resoundingly.

“Language,” Tony snaps at him, something bright and frightful and protective rising in his chest. “Young ears.”

It’s as though Steve only now remembers that there is a child in the midst, and that child is curled up in Tony’s arms, her little face tucked against his throat like it’s the safest place for her.

“This means that…” Steve doesn’t know how to finish the sentence. “That the two of you are…”

“How is that even possible?” Natasha asks, peering over Steve’s shoulder. “And how do we know that this isn’t just a-”

“A what, Romanoff?” Tony bites out. “A trap? She’s three.”

Natasha lifts her eyes, unflinching. “Three-year-olds can be efficient,” she says, simply.

Tony wonders about her, wonders about the file he read, wonders about the Red Room and _Natalia Alianovna Romanova_ and all the things that Natasha would have been at three, and he mourns for her, mourns for the child that she never got to be.

Hell, he mourns for himself, because it’s not as if he were ever a child himself.

Howard Stark would have never allowed something so unremarkable from his son.

Isn’t that why the girl is here, though? So that he can make sure that she doesn’t live the same life as Natasha and him, that she can be different, she can be loved and live her life the way she wants out instead of being used as a warm body or a knife in the dark or a mind to forge.

Isn’t that what Natasha should want as well?

“We should take this inside,” he murmurs.


	2. ii.

Three-year-olds who are removed from a torture prison and get to eat string cheese for the first time and get sneakers with the lights on them tucker out quite quickly, which leads to Tony sitting in the couch of his lounge room, with Maushmi sleeping on his lap.

“So, HYDRA made a kid,” Steve says, heavily. “A kid that is… biologically Bucky’s and Tony’s kid.”

“Yes,” Tony says.

“How is that even possible?” Sam wonders out loud, pinching the bridge of his nose. “‘Cause I remember high school biology, okay? You need an egg and sperm, and I'm pretty sure that the two of you can only produce sperm.”

“Well, that’s not entirely true,” Tony drawls. "I mean, you're right in the sense that Barnes and I can only produce sperm, unless HYDRA did something with that too."

Maushmi shifts in his lap, her brow furrowing, but he takes to smoothing back her hair in a comforting rhythm, petting her almost, the way that he remembers Jarvis doing to him and his mother on the off times that she’d pulled herself away from the wine and the pills to put him to bed.

“There are studies to do with stem cells, specifically primordial germ cells, which are the stem cells that are able to give rise to either sperm or egg cells. The body usually uses hormonal signals, and uh, other factors in order to determine whether those cells become sperm or egg cells. Basically, to make sure that two men are biologically the fathers of a child without the need of an egg donor, they take these primordial germ cells from both fathers, manipulating one of them to become egg cells. Because the male has all of the relevant maternal information on his one copy of the X chromosome, the resulting egg cell would theoretically be fully functional and contain that man’s DNA. The second father would then need to provide a sperm sample with which to inseminate the egg, though a surrogate would be required to carry the baby throughout gestation.”

“So, basically, you’re saying that HYDRA took cell samples from you and Bucky, manipulated them so that one would turn out into sperm cells, and the other would end up into an egg, and combined the two, creating an embryo, and then, implanted it in a surrogate to give birth,” Natasha says, slowly.

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“This is fucking insane,” Sam says, flatly. “Right? Not just to me, right, but to all of us?”

“It is,” Tony agrees, staring down at the little girl in his lap.

“I’m still trying to get past the idea that two men can have a kid,” Steve mutters under his breath.

“Well, they can, and I don't know if I should be the one to have that conversation with you, Rogers, but this, specifically, is a relatively untested science until now,” Tony offers. “It wouldn’t be… mass produced, not because of the, uh, logistical and the ethical factors involved, and America has historically been not okay with change, especially on a scientific front and especially with things that lend credence to the oppositie of a white, heteronormative, cissexual society. I mean, stem cell research is still considered to be like fucking with what God wants.”

“Why?” Steve asks, confused.

“Because stem cell research, for the most part, involves the use of embryonic stem cells,” Tony explains, patiently. “So, it’s taken from an early-stage pre-implantation embryo.”

“I don’t understand the difference,” Barnes says, speaking for the first time since they’d come inside, from his place against the wall, his arms folded over his chest, as if he prefers to hide in the shadows.

“So, in reproduction, an egg and sperm fertilise to create a zygote or a fertilised egg, and this fertilised egg travels through fallopian tubes to the uterus, and the cells keep splitting. About a week after the fertilisation, the zygote implants itself in the uterine lining. So, yeah, many religions accept stem cell research as long as the cells are extracted from the embryo before it is implanted in the womb,” Tony explains. “The Catholics say absolutely not, unless it comes from adult tissues and the umbilical cord. But HYDRA clearly has no issues about that, because they quite literally originated from a fucking Nazi organisation, so the concept of ethical scientific research probably doesn’t fucking exist there.”

“So, they made a child, with your DNA and Bucky’s DNA. How did they even _get_ your DNA?” Steve asks, confused.

“Well, I’m guessing they got Bucky’s DNA from the seventy years that he spent as their prisoner, and I wasn’t very… careful about where I was spilling my DNA a couple of years ago.”

Tony isn’t ashamed; he’s taken his licks, and he’s always thrown them back at people, and he’s not going to stand here and pretend like he doesn’t like orgasms.

“So, yeah, it is entirely possible that HYDRA could have gotten a hold of our DNA to, uh, to make a kid,” Tony says, finally.

“Are we really going to ignore the elephant in the room?” Natasha says, pointedly.

Tony faces her without flinching.

“She’s HYDRA, Tony,” Natasha says, gently.

“She’s a child.”

“So was I once, but I was still pretty good at killing,” Natasha retorts.

“Do you know what she was like when I found her? She was _terrified_. She looked like she wanted to crawl into the walls to get away from me-”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Bucky flinch, flinch like Tony’s words are painful, and he feels that flinch himself – it’s as if all they needed was that piece of paper to love her, and isn’t that just a little pathetic?

“And okay, fine, say this is some long con, huh? Maybe they knew I was coming and they left her there on purpose, although I don’t know why they would want to do that, and okay, maybe they left her there so that she could infiltrate our lives and kill us in our sleep, but does that mean that she doesn’t deserve our help?”

“Of course not,” Natasha says, frustration bleeding through her voice. “No one is saying that you didn’t do the right thing when you brought her here; of course you should have taken her away from the base; of course you should have brought her here, but I am concerned that you are getting too close to this.”

“Close?” Tony hisses. “She is quite literally my kid.”

“Yes, but you need to try and be objective about this situation and understand that this girl will need a lot more than just string cheese and sneakers that light up,” Natasha retorts. “If she has been… conditioned or something to hurt us, are you prepared for that?”

“You forget that we have JARVIS,” Tony points out. “Not even HYDRA could make a super soldier capable of getting past JARVIS.” He turns to Bucky. “No offence, I know you’re heavily accomplished and everything, but JARVIS could kill you all.”

Bucky shrugs, accepting his place in the hierarchy. “I’m okay with that.”

“If Maushmi is a problem, if she’s carrying around some mission from HYDRA, we will deal with it, and we will protect her,” Tony stresses, an edge to his voice.

Natasha’s face softens, and she reaches for him, their fingers threading together. “Of course we will protect her,” she says, fiercely, and it echoes through his very being.

He’s never quite forgotten or forgiven Natasha for how they met, the lies that she told, but as time passed, he’d quickly realised that they were actually very similar, willing to do the terrible, awful things that others squirmed at in order to protect those they loved.

He knew that, he knew that ruthlessness like the back of his hand.

“Of course we will,” Steve intones, folding the pieces of paper in a perfect rectangle and placing them onto the coffee table.

Bucky moves from his place against the wall, and it’s as if Tony forgets how to breathe as he slinks towards them, with all the grace of a loping jungle cat, a ripple of muscle that Tony knows has done terrible things, but his libido frankly doesn’t seem to understand that, and he finally gets his lungs working when James stops right in front of him, staring down at Maushmi with an unbearably soft look in his eyes.

He flattens his palm over her hair and murmurs something firm, full of resolve, in Russian.

_I will never let them touch you again._

Tony meets Bucky’s eyes, and the promise reverberates through his entire body.

They will never let HYDRA touch her again.

* * *

When the dust has settled, and Natasha and Sam and Steve have retreated into their floors, and Maushmi is still sleeping in Tony’s bedroom, under the watchful eye of JARVIS, Tony and Bucky are finally alone.

“How are you?” Tony considers that a safe question to ask.

Bucky lifts an eyebrow, a hint of a sardonic smile curling at the edge of his mouth. “How am I?”

Tony purses his lips thin. “Yeah, I know, stupid question, moving on-”

“No, no, it’s not a stupid question,” Bucky says, his voice taking on that grainy, rough exterior, like he’s sick or perhaps just not used to speaking. “I don’t do that sort of thing anymore.”

“So you said,” Tony says, folding his hands in his lap, as he starts to bounce his right leg up and down. “Steve said he found you-”

“He didn’t find me. I found him,” Bucky says, solemnly.

“You left him on the bank of that river.”

“Couldn’t let the punk die,” Bucky huffs, his Brooklyn accent slipping into his voice just the slightest.

“And then, you ran away.”

“I ran away,” Bucky says, without a hint of regret.

“You went to the Smithsonian.”

Bucky frowns. “How did you know that?”

“Oh, the second that I found out that the Winter Soldier was Bucky Barnes, I set JARVIS on you. Sorry,” Tony says, flatly. He pauses. “I used to have your comic books.”

“Comic books?” Bucky asks, confused.

“Captain America and his best friend, Bucky Barnes, and all the crazy adventures that they had together. I mean, _everyone_ was a Captain America fan, but Bucky Barnes, that was where the real shit was,” Tony muses.

“I feel like you just blew my mind,” Bucky sighs, dragging his hand over his face. “I… I don’t know how to deal with it.”

“Why did you go to the Smithsonian?” Tony asks, curiously.

“Because I didn’t know who Bucky Barnes was and I wanted to find out,” Bucky says, honestly.

“And now?”

Bucky gives him a measured look. “I’m still working things out.”

“For what it’s worth, I am very, deeply sorry about what happened to you, Sergeant Barnes. You deserved better,” Tony says, honestly, without the perfect, glossy veneer that he would normally adopt in front of veritable strangers so that they wouldn’t see the hot mess lingering underneath.

Bucky shifts uncomfortably. “Thank you.”

“I know this is a shit time for you. I know it sucks to come back to where you are now, to normalcy, to a sense of life beyond all the death.” Tony gnaws on his lower lip. “I know some parts of what that feels like. But… I have to ask you about Maushmi.”

Bucky takes a deep, steadying breath, rocking his shoulders.

“I’m not… I’m not fucking father material,” Tony says, running his tongue over the seam of his lips. “I’m not. I don’t… I don’t,” his throat flexes. “I didn’t have a great role model in father figures, at least not in my own father.”

“You’re Howard’s son.”

Tony smiles, the stretch of his mouth thin as a blade but turned up at the corners. “That I am,” he says, and that perfect, glossy veneer of his takes over before Bucky can see how much it hurts, how much it fucking sucks to talk about Howard Stark and pretend to be fucking generous about the man.

“And I’m guessing by your face that you didn’t like him very much.”

Tony leans forward. “What is my face saying?”

“That you have extreme daddy issues,” Bucky says, flatly.

Tony lifts an eyebrow.

That’s a non-committal, annoying way of saying _your father was an abusive dick._

Bucky’s mouth twists up, not a smile but close. “I was an assassin for a Nazi organisation for about seventy years, and I got very good at reading peoples’ faces.”

“And my face is telling you that I have extreme daddy issues.”

“It’s a pretty face, but yes.”

Bucky colours when he realises what he said, and then, he swallows thickly, like he’s anticipating a blow, like he knows that Tony is going to act in anger.

“You think my face is pretty?” Tony asks, his voice matching the look in his eyes, soft and sultry and vaguely flirtatious, almost like a second nature to him.

Bucky shrugs. “Probably one of the prettiest faces I’ve seen in a while,” he says, carefully, each word precise, like he thinks he’s not allowed to say these things.

“Really? It’s been a while since a young, strapping man like you has called me pretty,” Tony cackles, his grin stretching across his face.

“Young?” Bucky retorts. “I’ll have you know I was born in 1917. Not that I remember it.”

“You seem to be adjusting well,” Tony comments.

“I’m a good liar.”

“I hope you won’t lie to me about Maushmi,” Tony says, honestly.

Bucky’s hand clenches into a fist atop his thigh. “I won’t,” he says, woodenly. “I… I didn’t know, I need you to know that.”

“You mean, you didn’t know about what they were doing with our DNA?” Tony clarifies.

Bucky shakes his head. “Although, now that I do, I’m not surprised,” he mutters.

“Yeah, HYDRA’s a bunch of evil bastards, and I hope they burn alive.” Tony leans forward. “I want to know what your intentions are towards Maushmi.”

Bucky frowns. “That sounds weird.”

Tony shrugs. “I mean, those words do have a very different connotation in other contexts, but I mean it very sincerely here. You’ve been through something that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, and I can understand bits and pieces of what it must be like for you, to come away from all of it, to put your life back together. I just want you to know I don’t have any expectations.”

Bucky tilts his head towards Tony, curiously.

“You can take all the time for yourself, and I am happy to take care of Maushmi. She doesn’t… I mean, technically speaking, she was made from science, and it was… a coincidence that we happen to be her biological parents. We didn’t want her; we didn’t ask for her, and I’m not expecting you to become her father overnight, especially if you don’t want to. And you are allowed to not want to.”

“But you’re going to be her father,” Bucky says, slowly.

Tony cracks a smile. “I hated my father when he was alive, and when he died, I was sad, for some fucked-up, psychological reason. I had people who loved me, of course, and I can’t bear the idea of this little girl growing up in a world, thinking that no one loves her. I just…”

He lets out a low, steady breath, so that he can claw back the insides that are seeping out of the wounds that exposed all over his body.

“I just can’t do that. I _won’t_ do that,” Tony says, firmly, his eyes fixing on Bucky’s. “I just… I think of her somewhere else, you know, if I… if I let her go, and I know that’s what Natasha would want and probably even Steve, because they don’t think I’m capable of taking care of a child, and honestly, I feel the same way, but I think of her out there, with someone else, someone who might… treat her badly, like Howard treated me, who might not love her or care about her or who might hurt her or belittle her or make her feel like shit and unworthy of fucking love, and I think of her out there, growing up, like she can’t ever be loved, she can’t ever be wanted, and _I_ want her, I want her so fucking bad. I _care_ , I can _love_ her and want her and treat her good and I-”

“You’re a good person,” Bucky says, honestly.

Tony shrugs. “No, I’m not. This is… you can be a good parent and a really shitty person, just like you can be a shitty parent and a good person outside the house. I don’t care about being a good person outside these four walls, not when this little girl is relying on me, looks up at me and expects me to protect her. I don’t _care_ about anything else but this girl. And it’s weird, how quickly my life now revolves around this little girl, but… I wonder if things would be different if it hadn’t been me who found her, but I just… I remember what she looked like when I walked into the room. She was so scared, and I just… I never want her to feel that scared again.”

Bucky is smiling; it’s not a full, toothy one that Tony might have expected from someone else; it’s just his lips, and it’s thin and doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“That means you’re a good person,” he says, softly. “You asked me, before, what my intentions were. I don’t…” he sighs. “I just, I’m not… I’m not _good_ , Tony.”

“I think that’s bullshit,” Tony says, quickly, firmly.

Bucky sighs. “Tony, you don’t know what I’ve done-”

“I’ve levelled cities; the weapons that I made with my own two hands were used to destroy lives and livelihoods, and what, you, you with your torture and brainwashing and conditioning and memory loss and _trauma_ , you think you’re not _good_?” Tony points out. “Sorry, sweetheart, I’m calling bullshit.”

Bucky huffs out a laugh. “No one wins in an argument against you, do they?”

“Very few,” Tony agrees.

“Tony,” Bucky almost pleads. “Tony, I’m a fucking mess. I’m… I’m scared of my fucking shadow. I don’t even, I don’t even remember my mother’s name or what my sister’s favourite food was or… I don’t _remember_. And a part of me looks at that little girl, and it makes me think of all the ways that I could have stopped it from happening, and I didn’t.”

There’s a certain savage edge to his voice now, an edge that makes Tony inhale sharply.

“I didn’t help her; I _couldn’t_ help her, and I can’t… I don’t how to look at her and not feel guilty.”

“How could you have possibly helped her?” Tony asks, confused.

Bucky grinds his teeth. “I wouldn’t have even known if they’d trotted her out right in front of me. If they’d hurt her in front of me, I wouldn’t have been able to stop them. Hell, I wouldn’t have even _thought_ to. What sort… what sort of role model is that for this little girl?”

“I don’t think you can blame yourself for that,” Tony says, slowly.

“I just…” Bucky looks down at his lap. “I think of myself like that, and I don’t know what sort of man I am on this other end, and I’m scared, I’m scared that I’m not going to be a good man for her, a good _father_.”

“I understand that this is probably the worst time for you to take up this kind of responsibility. Hell, even for me, I mean, I’m reckless and everything, but this is most certainly out of my comfort zone too. You have a lot to deal with right now. You have… you have, I don’t envy you, the pieces that you have to put back together, and I know what I’m asking of you is unfair. I _know_ , and I wish, I wish I didn’t have to ask this of you, Bucky, because it really is not fucking fair to you.”

“But you want me to be her father,” Bucky reasons, his voice small.

“No, of course not,” Tony says, softly. “I just want to know if you want to be a part of her life. If you want to be a friend, an uncle, a father, or nothing at all, that’s up to you. I just want to know where you stand.” He hesitates. “And if you don’t want to answer right now, that’s fine. You can take as much time as you want to, and in the end, if you come to the decision that you’d like to be on the outside, that’s your choice, and no one’s gonna give you shit for it, I promise.”

Bucky considers him for a moment, and a part of Tony waits in bated breath, for his response.

“I think… I’d like some time,” Bucky says, carefully, each word precise and calculated.

Tony shrugs. “Fair? You want some ice cream?”

Bucky just stares at him in amazement as Tony makes his way into the kitchen and pulls out a tub of mint chocolate-chip from the fridge, setting it on the coffee table between them.

“Eat,” he orders. “It’s the best thing you’ll taste in this century. This, and salted caramel.”

“Salted caramel?” Bucky says, dubiously.

“It’s a thing,” Tony explains. “It’s a great thing.”

Bucky heaves up a spoon of the ice cream and puts it in his mouth. Immediately, his eyes widen.

“Oh, my God.”

“I know, right?”

“This is the best thing that I’ve tasted,” Bucky says, after he’s finished swallowing.

“It is,” Tony agrees.

“Do you think I could put this in my veins?” Bucky wonders out loud. “I could just be a mush of a mint chocolate chip ice cream.”

“That would be the dream,” Tony sighs, staring at his own spoonful, before he shoves it into his mouth.


	3. iii.

Two months later, Bucky is sitting on a chair in Tony’s workshop, while Tony makes a few adjustments on the new arm that he’d fitted for him.

“Done, and done,” Tony says, leaning back, smug and self-satisfied.

Bucky stares at his new arm, the dark chrome finish, and then, his eyes drag up to pin Tony in place with a grave look. Then, he leans forward and seals their mouths together. Tony gasps in surprise, but he melts into the kiss, easy enough, curling his hand around the nape of Bucky’s neck.

Bucky’s tongue slides hesitantly into his mouth, curling behind his teeth, and Tony makes a muffled sound of contentment.

“Ew!”

Tony and Bucky break away from each other to find Maushmi standing in the elevator doorway to his workshop. Her face is set in a grimace, and she’s twisting her finger in the ends of her plait.

Tony clears his throat. “Hey, baby, what are you doing down here? You should be sleeping,” he says, his voice stern-edged.

“I wanted chocolate,” Maushmi says, simply, and pads over to them, stretching her arms out so that Tony can lift her into his arms and settle her on his lap.

“Mouse, sweetheart,” Tony sighs, “you’ve already brushed your teeth.”

Maushmi pouts. “Please,” she says, her voice high and thin.

“If I let you eat chocolate now, your teeth will fall out,” Tony says, solemnly.

Maushmi’s eyes widen, and she holds her hands up to her mouth, as if covering them will stop them from falling out.

“No,” she gasps, horrified.

“I’m afraid so,” Tony clucks his tongue.

He wonders if it’s a terrible sin to lie so shamelessly to a child, but then again, his mother used to tell him that if he didn’t drink milk, all the cows would cry, so, maybe, this is what you have to do to make little kids do what they’re told.

Maushmi immediately turns sullen and leans her head against his chest, shifting in his lap to stare at Bucky who looks immediately unsure of himself.

“Hi,” she says, bravely.

“Hi,” Bucky says and clears his throat. “Hi.”

They haven’t interacted much, Bucky and Maushmi. Whenever Maushmi was around, Bucky seemed suspiciously unavailable or absent, and if he actually was, by chance, around, he spoke in monosyllabic sentences, and was very, very careful with her.

He wasn’t cruel by any means, but it was more that he seemed to not know what to say.

Maushmi has changed in these last few months; she isn’t half as wary and terrified as she was when Tony first found her, but there is still a heavy amount of doubt and misgiving when it comes to the people around her.

She likes Natasha and Pepper, who endure her makeover phase with plenty of grace, and Tony has a number of pictures of the Black Widow and the CEO of Stark Industries sitting quietly at Tony’s penthouse kitchen, as Maushmi methodically paints blue lipstick onto their mouths.

She likes Rhodey, of course, because there is enough of Tony’s DNA in her that thinks his honeybear is easily the greatest man that he will ever know or could ever know. Rhodey had only been able to stay for a weekend every couple of times, but each weekend, Maushmi demanded all of his attention and grew almost depressed the Monday after he was gone.

She likes Sam, who is patient with her and always has a smile for her and even likes to read to her, and Tony learns very quickly that he’s good with Maushmi because he has nieces and nephews of his own, at a similar age, and dealing with children just comes easily to him.

She’s shy around Steve, surprisingly, and it’s the most hangdog, grumpy expression that Tony has ever seen Steve take. Whenever Steve is around, Maushmi finds something way more interesting in Tony’s shoulder or his back or his calf, and Tony doesn’t know what to say when he sees Steve’s face fall in response.

“Maybe,” Steve sighed the last time around, when Maushmi had run out of the room the moment that he’d entered, “maybe, she’s scared of me or something.”

“Well, you are kind of big,” Tony offered, apologetically. “She might see that as… threatening or something, after everything that she’s been through.”

Steve nodded in understanding, even if he continued to look sour over it, but Tony imagined no one would like to know that a little girl is scared of them.

“I just… I want the opportunity to show her that I’m not all bad,” Steve explained. “But she won’t give me a chance.”

Tony patted him on the arm. “I’m sure she’ll get used to you the longer that she sees you around.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Steve said, scrunching his face up like he didn’t quite believe Tony.

That night, when he put Maushmi to bed and tucked her in, he asked her the question, why she felt so nervous around Steve.

Maushmi’s eyes slid from side to side, as if she feared new people would morph out of the shadows, and she fisted her small hand in his shirt, drawing him in close to tell him a secret.

“He’s very handsome,” she whispered to him like she was telling him a state secret.

Tony hid his amusement very well, he thought, and he brushed her hair back.

“He does look like a Disney prince,” he agreed.

Maushmi’s eyes brightened. “Could you marry Steve? Then, I could have a Disney prince for a Dad and Iron Man for an Appa.”

Tony blinked at the sudden sting that entered his eyes. “You think I’m your Appa?”

Maushmi stared at him. “They said that you’re my father, the bad people; that’s why they had me.”

Tony hesitated. “It’s… you, you know what DNA is?”

“No.”

“DNA is the genes that parents pass onto their children. It’s how you prove that you’re related to someone. So, I’m one of your parents, and the other parent-”

“They said that his name was the Winter Soldier,” Maushmi cut him off, staring down at her lap. “They said that if I was bad, he’d come and hurt me.”

Tony shook his head, fervently. “No, baby, no. That’s not true at all. You met him before. You remember Steve’s friend, Bucky?”

Maushmi nodded.

“He’s the Winter Soldier.”

She looked suddenly afraid, like she wanted to climb out of the bed and hide in her closet as if that would give her some form of protection.

“Was I bad?” she asked in a small voice that felt like a sharp stab to his chest. “Is that why you brought him here?”

“No,” Tony said, firmly. “No, HYDRA, the _bad_ men, they hurt him too. He’s actually a really nice guy, but they made him do bad things, and he didn’t want to do them, and they actually hurt him a lot.”

“Oh,” Maushmi breathes deep. “Does that mean that he’s not going to hurt me?”

Tony nodded. “He wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Did the bad men stop hurting him?”

“Yeah. So, you know how I came and got you away from them?”

Maushmi nodded.

“Steve did the same thing for Bucky. So, now, Bucky’s safe, just like you are. He’s not going to hurt you, baby.”

“Is he my Dad?” Maushmi asked, quietly, a range of expressions passing over her face as if she didn’t know how to feel about that.

“I mean, it’s up to you what he is,” Tony told her, carefully. “It’s up to you what I am too. If you want to call me Appa, that’s completely fine with me. I would…” he swallowed hard around the lump that formed in his throat, “I will _always_ take care of you, Maushmi. I promise. You’re my baby.”

“Am I?”

“Yeah,” Tony said, softly.

“Oh. And I don’t have to call… Bucky _Dad_?”

“Only if you want to.”

Maushmi’s shoulders slumped. “Can’t Steve be my Dad?”

Tony had laughed.

When Tony told Steve exactly why Maushmi was so shy around him, he’d turned red as a tomato.

“Tony, no offence, I like you, and you’re very handsome, but I feel like Bucky would kill me if I asked you out.”

Tony sniffed, even as a little shiver of pleasure curled in his chest. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Steve gave him a dubious look. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

Which brought them here, to Maushmi sitting in his lap, and Tony’s lips still tingling, vibrating, from Bucky’s kiss, and Bucky opposite from them, concerned and still so awkward.

“You’re my dad,” she says, with a hint of a lisp.

Bucky clears his throat. “I suppose I am,” he says, carefully, “if you want me to be.”

Maushmi shrugs. “I don’t know you,” she says, bluntly. “Do _you_ want to be my dad?”

Bucky leans forward. “Do you know who I am?” he asks, patiently, fearlessly.

Maushmi kicks her feet. “Appa said that you were the Winter Soldier,” she says, quietly.

Bucky nods. “Yeah, I was.”

“They said,” Maushmi hesitates, looking up at Tony for reassurance, who nods at her, making his face as kind as possible, so that she knows that he’s here, she’s safe, that she can say anything she like, and no one will hurt her for it, “The bad men, they said that you would hurt me if I were bad.”

A hurt little noise escapes Bucky, as he drags his hand through his shoulder-length hair, mussing it.

“No, Maushmi,” he says, seriously, firmly, with an undercurrent of steel. “No, they were bad men, and they were lying.”

Maushmi nods. “That’s what Appa said.”

Tony can’t help but smile at the way that she so easily, with such unthinking familiarity, calls him _Appa_ , as if she’d been calling him that for years.

“They hurt me too, the bad men,” Bucky says, cautiously. “But I want you to know that the bad men will never get to you again.”

“Yeah?” Maushmi says, almost shyly, peering up at him through the sweep of her dark lashes.

“Never again. I know they hurt you, and I know they used me to hurt you, and I’m so sorry for that,” he says, roughly, leaning forward, so that she can read his whole face, look into his eyes. “I promise though, you’re safe here, you will always be safe here, and I- _we_ will never let the bad men touch you again.”

Maushmi ducks her head, nodding, and Tony doesn’t know what she’s thinking.

“You didn’t answer my question,” she says, after a moment, lifting her head and blinking at him slow and wide.

Bucky takes a deep breath. “Maushmi, if you want me, I will happily be your father.”

Tony is startled, not having expected that reaction, those words from Bucky. The last time that Tony had this conversation about Maushmi, Bucky had asked him for time, and Tony had gladly given it.

He has been the subject of parenting where one of the parents actually had no interest in being a parent, and he isn’t about to subject Maushmi to that if he can help it.

“Really?” Maushmi says, confused and perhaps, a little hopeful.

Bucky nods.

“But why, why did it take you so long?”

“Because I was scared,” Bucky says, honestly, “because I was still getting better. Because I was feeling guilty.”

“What’s that?” Maushmi asks, quietly. “Guilty?” she sounds the word out, and she struggles with the second syllable, her lisp forming around the consonant.

Bucky clears his throat. “It means that I didn’t like that they used me to hurt you. I didn’t like that I couldn’t help you, even though the same bad men had me too. I wish I could’ve gotten you out of there.”

“Me too,” Maushmi says, quietly.

Bucky flinches.

“But if you’re my dad, does that mean you’ll play with me?” she asks, seriously, bravely reaching her hands out and planting her small palms on Bucky’s stubbled cheeks, smushing his face together.

Bucky nods, hesitantly. “Yeah, if you want, I’ll play with you.”

Maushmi nods, accepting that. “I like Barbies. Do you know what a Barbie is?”

“No,” Bucky says, carefully.

Maushmi slides off Tony’s lap, holding out a hand. “I’ll show you. Come on,” she says, primly, her voice brooking no argument.

“Oh, wait a minute, missy,” Tony says, quickly, his arm curling around Maushmi’s hips and dragging her up onto his hip. “It is way past your bedtime. You can show Bucky your Barbies tomorrow.”

“I have an Indian Barbie ‘cause she looks like me,” Maushmi explains. “And Appa’s gonna help me make her more sarees.” She looks at Tony. “If I have to go to bed, can Daddy come with me?”

Tony looks at Bucky over the top of Maushmi’s head. “Uh, I have no problems with that.”

“Of course,” Bucky says, quickly.

Maushmi’s face splits wide in a grin, and before Tony even knows what is happening, Maushmi is tipping out of his arms, and Bucky’s eyes widen, his hands lurching out just time to catch her before she hits the ground. Maushmi giggles and lifts herself up so that she can rest her head against his shoulder, with easy, unthinking familiarity, as if she’s already decided in her bones that Bucky is her father and there is no tearing him away from her.

Bucky’s face crumples so quickly and so painfully that it makes Tony’s chest hurts, and he watches as Bucky leans in close, nudges his nose against Maushmi’s hair, as if he’s trying to memorise the feel of her small body in his arms.

Tony knows, because he’s done that half a thousand times since he found Maushmi in that HYDRA base.

“Come on, let’s put the munchkin to bed,” he says, softly.

He goes over to the elevator, and Bucky follows dutifully, holding onto Maushmi with such care, listening to her babble with avid attention.

It seems strange that so much has changed in so few months, that Tony has a daughter, a daughter with the Winter Soldier, who is really Bucky Barnes, the Bucky Barnes that he used to have a crush on, and that very same Bucky Barnes just kissed him and stuck his tongue down Tony’s throat.

He pinches himself, just to be sure.

Other than the flinch and soreness, nothing changes.

He’s still in an elevator, listening to a three-year-old who looks like him talk about the episode of Dora the Explorer she watched before going to bed, recapping the events and the dastardly acts of Swiper the Fox, to Bucky Barnes, who nods at her at appropriate moments, the full swath of his attention fixed on him.

They climb out of the elevator when they reach Tony’s penthouse, and Tony leads them both to Maushmi’s bedroom. JARVIS switches on the lights as they cross the threshold, and Maushmi’s eyes drag up to the ceiling.

“Thank you, JARBIS,” she says, struggling with the ‘v’ in his name, but beaming, nonetheless.

“You are most welcome, Miss Maushmi,” JARVIS says with infinite kindness, as loyal to his creator’s (read: father) daughter as he is to Tony.

She races to her bed, her legs waddling in a way that makes Tony smile to himself, his chest filling up with something soft. She climbs onto the bed, with practiced, graceful ease that she must have inherited, sliding under the sheets and throwing them over her small body so that she’s completely covered in the swathes of purple quilt.

“Come,” she orders, stretching out her hand.

Bucky drags himself forward, as if pulled by a rope around his neck to her side, and Tony follows at a slower pace, content to watch the bonding moment from the sidelines.

“I want you to tell me a story,” she tells him, her dark eyes gravely earnest.

Bucky looks at Tony for help, but Tony just simply shrugs, letting him take the lead.

Maushmi sighs and reaches under her pillow, shoving a hardbound book at him.

“Aniruddha,” Bucky says, carefully, staring down at the picturesque cover.

“That’s Appa’s name,” Maushmi tells him, innocuously.

Bucky looks at Tony curiously. Tony stretches like a cat, his arms over his head, feeling his knuckles crack.

“My mother, when I was born, gave me that name before my father put _Anthony Stark_ down on my birth certificate. That story is the reason why she named me _Aniruddh_ ,” Tony explains, gesturing to the book.

Bucky’s brow furrows, and he cracks open the book, the plastic creaking in the air, to the first page, beginning to read in slow, soft rumble that makes Tony’s eyes flutter shut in time with Maushmi’s, the tenor of the voice pleasant in the quiet of the room.

“Usha was the daughter of the noble Asura king, Bana of the Thousand Arms. Bana was a devotee of Lord Shiva. One day with his thousand arms, he played various musical instruments as Shiva danced the _tandava_ -”

By the time they reach Bana finding out about Aniruddha and Usha’s marriage and starting a war out of blown pride, Maushmi is fast asleep, her dark hair spread across the pillow like a cloud, her lashes thick against the curve of her cheek, as she breathes deep, her chest rising and fallen in a gentle rhythm.

Tony is content to watch her for hours, just to know that she’s alive and breathing and safe.

“Uh, I should just…” Bucky looks at the book in his hand and is at a loss at where to put it.

Tony sighs and takes it from his hands, closing it and placing it in the bottom shelf of the bedside table beside Maushmi. He claps Bucky on the shoulder.

“Come on, it’s time for bed.”

He slides his hand through Bucky’s arm, landing on the crook of his elbow, and Bucky rolls with it, happily, leading him out of Maushmi’s room. Tony closes the door behind him, leaving just a crack open so that the light in the hallway can seep through.

“J?” Tony calls out.

“I will keep an eye on the young miss, sir,” JARVIS says, promptly, reassuringly.

“Thanks, J.”

“So,” Bucky says, and his hand slides down the length of Tony’s arm, until he tangles their fingers together. “Things have changed a lot since I was a… uh, since I went fishin’-”

“Fishing?” Tony clarifies, a smile playing along the edges of his mouth.

“Got a date?” Bucky says with a shy wince.

“Oh,” Tony says, dragging out the single syllable, purposefully.

“When I was… uh, when I was active duty,” Bucky winces again, “that’s what Stevie used to say, but I did some research, and I think they call that slut shamin’ now?”

Tony laughs, his shoulders shaking soundlessly. “They absolutely do. So, what you’re saying is that you used to be a slut in the forties?”

Bucky rubs the back of his neck, a flush rising to his face, spreading and hot. “I think the word ‘slut’ might be exaggeratin’ some things, but yeah, I guess.”

“It’s okay. I was a slut in the nineties,” Tony teases, “and in the eighties, although, that has different connotations now, and then, I was totally a slut in the noughties as well, even if no one actually calls them that. Anyway, I’m guessing that you were totally heading towards something before I distracted you with my manifesto on slut shaming?”

“Yeah, I was, uh, tryin’ to figure out the best way to ask you out on a date, and I was gonna do that in the workshop earlier but-”

“But your desire to stick your tongue down my throat reared its ugly head?” Tony asks, innocently.

Bucky’s face splits in a grin. “What can I say? You’ve got a gorgeous face, doll.”

“Why, thank you,” Tony preens, and he can’t decide between the adorably awkward recovering Winter Soldier and flirtatious, confident Bucky Barnes.

They’re both equally endearing, equally fuckable.

“Like I said, I wanted to ask you out on a date, but, uh, things are different than they were back in the forties, and I realised the kind of date that I might have taken you out on in the forties-”

“-you know, if it wouldn’t have gotten us beaten up in an alley or arrested for breaking anti-miscegenation and sodomy laws,” Tony drawls.

Bucky grimaces. “Yeah, if it wouldn’t have. If we were in the forties, I would’ve taken you dancin’ or for a movie, and I don’t know if that sounds-”

Tony takes pity on his anxious fluttering. “I would love to go and see a movie with you, Bucky,” he says, kindly. “Gone Girl, because I’ve seen the trailer, and I want to see Rosamund Pike acting out my favourite revenge fantasy. And dancing sounds amazing, but I’m pretty sure that the dancing that you’re used to and the dancing that I’m used to are very different kinds of dancing.”

“Should I be scared?” Bucky asks, warily.

“You should be prepared for me to suck you off in the bathroom in between songs, where I basically dry-hump you,” Tony says, flatly, without shame.

Bucky’s face is immediately hot with embarrassment, pink from hairline to collar, and he looks strangely breathless and eager at the idea, eager to make it a reality.

Tony wonders at the images that are forming behind his eyelids; he’s happy to keep stoking the fire.

Tony’s smile spreads wide across his face, showing the pale shine of his teeth. “So, how does that sound?”

Bucky’s eyes slide to the almost closed door to Maushmi’s bedroom. “How soon can we get a babysitter?”

Tony snorts. “We might as well make Steve work for a living. And who knows, when we get home, we could have a brand-new son-in-law waiting for us.”

Bucky chokes. “I’m sorry, _what_?”


End file.
